


This is How We Live

by Khirs



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Ice Cream Shop AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-20 20:56:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3664686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirs/pseuds/Khirs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura Hollis spends the summer after her senior year at working at Happy Scoops with her friend Perry to help her dad out. She doesn't fit in with the glamorous people in the Broadmoor area, but that doesn't stop her immediate attraction to perhaps the most glamorous girl of them all. It's a summer of learning who she is, friendships, and romance. She learns there is a lot more to the world around her than she initially thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One Tuesday Afternoon

My dad tried his best, he really did, and as I’ve grown older, I understand not even trying your best guarantees success. He waved from the driveway with his best smile covered head to toe in grease and sweat. My lunch was packed neatly and cleanly, not a speck of dirt on the smallest grape. He was a great dad.

“Hello, Miss Hollis,” the city bus driver greeted me good naturedly as soon as I stepped on.

“Hi, Mrs. Atkins,” I smiled back.

“Early shift today?”

I took my usual seat closest to the door. “Yes ma’am.”

She nodded and turned her attention back on the road. I pulled out an old paperback copy of _The Beetle_ by Richard Marsh. I never knew why it held hours of entertainment value for me, but I’d read it so many times the poor spine was worn down and threatening to fall apart at a moment’s notice. Sliding my free hand over my jeans in a nervous habit, I tried to focus on the novel instead of my impending work day.

Another nine hour work day at the ice cream shop, but if I was lucky, tips would be enough to grab some groceries from the store that weren’t cup noodles or cheap TV dinners. My dad once ate cereal for three weeks straight to make he could afford to pack nice healthy lunches for me. When I was able to get a job, I did so gladly. I only hoped to repay my dad for all that he’s done for me at some point. Groceries were a small start, and I could tell he really appreciated the home cooked meals whenever we had them.

I slipped the book back into my bag, my attention elsewhere for too long. The city passed in a blur of rundown buildings and small houses with shutters missing or cracked windows. I pressed my forehead against the window, wishing it were cooler on the bus but knowing the heat outside was too incredibly vicious to crack it even a little to get some air flow. Soon the buildings began to look nicer, and after one small overpass, we were in downtown.

It wasn’t a big city by any means, but it was home. I worked in an ice cream shop called Happy Scoops on the less traffic heavy side among some high priced shops near the city park. Broadmoor was a good area to work in if you lived off tips though so I could deal with being treated like I was less than human on the odd occasion.

“Hey Laura,” greeted my friend Perry. She was a bit high strung, but sometimes she made brownies for me and my dad.

“Perry, hi, do you close today?”

She nodded her head, curls bouncing viciously in every direction. “Ready for another great day at Happy Scoops?”

I couldn’t tell if she was being sarcastic or just being Perry so I nodded and put my stuff in the back. By the time I’d clocked on, she was wiping down every surface so meticulously I was sure children could eat off of them. She definitely was the sole reason Happy Scoops was as clean as it was.

The day passed by relatively slowly. It was the same as any other day. We’d get a spurt of business then it would slow down to a trickle until eventually people would stop coming in. The sun was setting, setting the windows ablaze with colors so vibrant I wished I could paint. I glanced at the clock. Only twenty more minutes. Hopefully I would make it home before Dad tonight.

“Hey Laura, can you handle this?” she asked, motioning to the front counter.

“Of course!”

“Okay, I’m going to get the money counted and everything so when we close we’ll only have a few things left before we can get out of here.”

I smiled and gave her a thumbs up.

I was straightening the tables and chairs when she walked in, dark hair falling in loose curls just below her shoulders. She had a black vest trimmed in lace over a cream colored shirt, and her thigh high socks reached fruitlessly for the high hem of her shorts. There was a small bag from a bookstore next door dangling carelessly from her hand. My mouth ran dry, and the world slowed to a stop. I could see my wide eyed expression reflected back at me in her sunglasses; she probably thought I was a freak by now. I cleared my throat as if it would help the weird feeling I had tugging at my stomach.

“Hi, welcome to Happy Scoops,” I greeted less robotically as I usually did. I slid back around the counter and tried not to trip.

“A scoop of coffee, a scoop of chocolate, mixed with extra marshmallows,” she said. Her voice sent warm shivers down my spine.

I made her order then totaled her out. “That will be $5.87.”

She pushed her sunglasses up into her hair. I tried to keep my jaw from dropping as her eyes flicked up to mine. They were molten chocolate, ensnaring me with their depth. My hands shook as I gave her the change back, and a small amused smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.

“Thanks, see you around, Cupcake,” she said with a wave of her hand, not even looking back at me.

“You too!” I called nervously after her. My palms were sweating. Oh my gosh.

“Go ahead and lock up!” Perry said from the back.

I nodded even though she couldn’t see me.

The entire bus ride back home, all I could think about was that girl’s eyes, the way she spoke. The way I was immediately and undeniably attracted to her.


	2. Sunsets and Books

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perry is ridiculously excited about her mysterious plans after they close. Kirsch stops by Happy Scoops, and Laura has a visitor after work while she's waiting for her bus. Will Laura finally get the mystery girl's name?

“Hey sweetie,” my dad said as he fired up the coffee maker the next morning. The sun was just beginning to stream in pink and golden beams through our small kitchen window.

“You look nice, Dad,” I smiled, gladly accepting the mug of cocoa he had waiting for me. “What’s the occasion?”

“Job interview,” he shrugged lightly. “A second job would be nice, and I could make my own schedule. If I get it.”

“You’ll get it!” I said. He gave me a thumbs up at my cheeriness.

“Now hurry up, you’ll miss the bus and then Mrs. Atkins will be worried,” he hugged me. He smelled like the aftershave he wore to Mom’s funeral. My jaw clenched, but I forced a smile for his sake anyway.

“Bye! Good luck!”

I raced down to the bus stop near the end of our driveway just as Mrs. Atkins was pulling up. She raised an eyebrow at my out of character lateness, but she said nothing beyond her usual good morning. Today, I didn’t even bother to take out the novel resting in my backpack. Instead, my thoughts traveled back to that girl from yesterday. So consumed was I in these thoughts that I barely registered my stop coming up faster than I’d like.

Happy Scoops didn’t open until eleven so I relaxed at one of our outdoor tables until Perry came up on her bicycle. I asked her when she rode up on it the first time two days ago why she didn’t drive or at least take the bus; she only scoffed and said bicycling was good exercise and just _God Laura why do you have to question everything_? Today she wore an easy smile, her step just a bit peppier than usual, her favorite outfit on.

“Perry, what is all this?”

“Um, nothing!” she exclaimed nervously. “There’s nothing going on. Nope, it’s all perfectly normal. Everything’s fine.”

I nodded without believing anything she said. As soon as her rambling reached that high pitch indicating her desire for secrecy I let it go. She’d tell me when she was ready. By the time we finished our opening tasks, my forehead was beaded with sweat.

“Hey little hottie,” came a smooth voice from the doorway. Perry’s head immediately poked out.

“Kirsch?”

“Hey! I didn’t know you were still here!” he said, coming around to swing her up in a hug.

“Just until I head to college,” she nodded. “How’s Danny?”

“She’s good, she’s good.”

“Still best friends?”

He gave her a smile. “The _very_ best.”

“Oh! Kirsch, this is Laura,” Perry finally introduced us. I went to shake his hand, but he scooped me up into a bear head.

“Okay your name is Laura, not little hottie,” he said with practiced ease. Perry nodded and patted him on the arm in congratulations.

“We had to have a talk about him calling everyone some variation of hottie when some girl slapped him in the middle of the street last summer,” Perry winced from the memory. His hand went up to his face subconsciously, and I even found it in me to chuckle a little.

“Did it hurt?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “It hurt only my pride, little hot… Laura.”

“He’s getting there,” Perry assured me as she shooed him back around the counter. “When will Danny be by?”

“I’m not sure; she’s got a lot going on with Summer Society right now.”

“Tell her please not to be a stranger, will you Kirsch? She’s _too_ involved sometimes.”

“She’s not the only one, Perry,” Kirsch said with a friendly smile. He gave me a slight wave before ducking out the door.

“I get out,” she grumbled under her breath. I raised my eyebrows. “I get out sometimes.”

She spent the next few hours sulking until we were getting ready to wind down our sales day. The heat from outside had slowly been drifting in the constantly opening door all day, and I was feeling like I was baking. Perry kept adjusting the air conditioner by one degree at a time. She would run her fingers through her hair and scrunch her nose up at the air conditioner every fifteen minutes. I was so ready to get out of the hot box so I hurried through closing chores, making sure Perry was on point like usual.

“Do you have planned activities after work as well?” she asked me when I went to check on her in the back as she counted product.

“What? No, it’s just hot,” I said, pausing a moment. “Wait! Do you?!”

“No!” she screeched though the blush rising up her neck to coat her cheeks in a light pink gave her away. “I mean yes.”

“Ooh Perry, I had no idea!”

“You did, didn’t you, you little brat?” she teased me good naturedly. Her next smile came easier.

“I had a feeling,” I shrugged. “What are you doing?”

“I’m going on a picnic with someone I met at the bicycle shop down the street. There’s supposed to be some musical performance at City Park this evening.”

“That explains why you’re in such a hurry,” I laughed, helping her by quickly stocking everything we would need to open easily tomorrow.

She locked the doors, a carefree smile on her face for once, and bid me a farewell. I waved as she climbed on to her bicycle and headed toward the park; I hoped desperately that she would have a good time. Perry was one of the most genuinely kind and concerned people I’d ever met. Anyone who could put such a smile on her face was definitely an important one.

Just as I leaned back in my chair closing my eyes to enjoy the last bit of soft sunshine, someone’s shadow blocked out the light. I quickly opened my eyes back up, fully expecting to have to use that martial arts class my dad forced me in. A smirk was tugging at just one corner of her mouth.

“Hi,” I said dumbly.

“Are you guys closed?” she nodded to the front door.

“Yeah, we close at 6 on weekdays.”

She made a noncommittal noise and pulled out a chair, the legs scraping against the concrete harshly enough to make me cringe.

“Don’t want me to sit?” she teased. “Get used to me, Cupcake.”

“Excuse me?”

“I like Happy Scoops,” she said, “so you’ll be seeing quite a bit of me.”

“Probably, I _do_ work here after all.”

That time she actually laughed, the sound like tinkling bells warmed my heart over. She took out a book from her backpack and leaned back in her own chair. Confused but intrigued, I watched her fall slowly into whatever she was reading.

“Um,” I stammered, “sure you can sit here.”

She flashed me a grin. “Thanks, cutie. I enjoy my quiet time.”

I huffed when she returned back to her book even as her smile stretched further across her face. Sighing to myself, I took out _The Beetle_. I might as well get some reading of my own done if we weren’t going to have conversation. I looked up to see her smiling slightly at me before going back to reading.

Twenty or so minutes passed, and the sun was finally beginning to sink beneath the buildings leaving us in long shadows, the warmth being sapped by the impending nightfall. The bus was shuddering to the stop before Happy Scoops just as the streetlights clicked on. As I began packing my bags, she looked up at me in confusion. I just jerked my thumb toward the bus.

“That’s my ride,” I said, hitching my backpack further up onto my shoulder. She looked surprised but stayed silent, lifting her hand in a silent wave. I gave her a smile and a nod.

“Carmilla,” she called to me as I got on the bus. I paused to turn around and look at her. My eyes met her warm dark ones even in the low light, and there was a bat swooping around in my stomach. “My name. It’s Carmilla.”

“Nice to meet you, Carmilla,” I told her honestly as I climbed onto the bus, greeting Mrs. Atkins fondly.

I couldn’t tell for sure in the poor lighting, but I could have sworn I saw her blush.


	3. Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Laura faces memories of her mom on her day off. Perry comes over, and their friendship grows stronger over brownies and conversations.

My dad had work as usual on the one day I had off that week. He left a note on the refrigerator and a plate of cookies on the counter with a lunch bag packed up next to it. I guessed he’d forgotten I didn’t have work.

I started some laundry, caught up on dishes, and made sure everything else was relatively clean. Whenever I passed a portrait of my mom, I’d avert my eyes and try to remember how to breathe. It had been nearly a year, but it still wasn’t any easier than it had been that first day. Sometimes I still avoided being home just to avoid it, but today, I couldn’t escape the memories flooding back to me. Yesterday would have been her birthday. I didn’t even have work to escape into today so when my eyes lingered on the last picture we took together, I bit my lip and tried to stifle the tears I could feel building at the corners of my eyes.

_“Laura, sweetie,” she said with her cool fingers pressing under my chin lovingly to bring my eyes up to hers. She gave me a soft, sad smile, the one that meant she knew she was dying. “My love, be good when I’m gone. Dad will need some time; you know how he doesn’t take things too well.”_

_I nodded as tears slipped past my burning eyes to fall onto her thin hand. Bones pressed tightly against her skin as if they were trying to escape. She’d grown so thin, and her hair was starting to fall out more quickly now. She patted the space beside her so I climbed gently into the bed next to her. Her fingers combed through my hair like they did when I was little._

_“When you were little, you’d pretend to look for vampires in your closet,” Mom giggled girlishly, hazel eyes far away. “When I asked why, you said you wanted to bribe them to bite me and your dad so we could live forever.”_

_“Oh my gosh.”_

_“You were heartbroken when you finally figured out that there were no vampires, that I and your dad would die someday,” she said. I tried to ignore the way her voice wavered and broke. “I just didn’t think it’d be so soon, sweetheart. I thought I’d be here for your college graduation.”_

_“You may still be!” I said, suddenly desperate for her reassurance. “You will be!”_

_“Maybe,” she smiled that motherly smile that meant she wanted me to feel better but she didn’t believe any of it. “Close your eyes now, my love. We’re going to the library later, and you’re going to pick me out a nice book to pass the time while you’re at school.”_

_She pressed a soft kiss to my temple as she hummed a song I couldn’t put my finger on. I felt my eyes grow heavy with the comfort only she could give me, and there next to her I fell asleep with her in our home for the last time._

A knock on my door startled me out of my thoughts. I brushed an errant tear away with an angry swipe of my hand then went to answer the door.

“Perry?”

“Yes, hello Laura,” she said with a forced smile. “May I come in?”

“Um sure, are you okay?”

“Oh, I’m fine, just fine. Do you want to make brownies?” she asked, holding up a paper bag filled with ingredients.

An hour and a half later, we were sprawled out on a blanket in my small backyard sharing a plate of brownies and watching the sun travel across the sky. She hadn’t said what was bothering, but I’d known Perry since my days visiting Mom in the hospital so I could tell something was up that she was avoiding thinking about.

“Is your grandpa okay?” I asked finally. She nodded, chewing thoughtfully on a bite of brownie.

“Can I tell you something?” Her voice was so scared, so unsure, so completely unlike the Perry I’d met wandering the ugly fluorescent-lit hospital halls.

“Of course.”

“I think I like someone.”

It took me a moment to process. I nodded to myself and stared up at the lonely clouds drifting few and far in between in the otherwise blue sky.

“Who?”

“Their name is LaFontaine,” she whispered as if something were to break should she talk too loudly.

“Where’d you meet them?”

“The bike shop,” Perry admitted, running her hands over the blanket to smooth out the creases. A smile blossomed on my face.

“That explains why you bought the bike.”

“That isn’t the only reason!”

I gave her a look and giggled when the blush negated her words.

“Okay, well it may have been a major contributing factor.”

“When are they going to come to Happy Scoops?” I asked, running my fingers through the short blades of grass by the side of the blanket.

She shrugged. “I saw that girl came back.”

“She did.”

“She’s cute,” she said.

“She is.”

“So?” she pressed, handing me a bottle of water from our makeshift cooler.

“So she’s cute, a little cocky maybe,” I replied finally.

“Hmm,” murmured Perry as she studied my face. Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t quite find so just shot me a smile and sat up, wrapping her arms around her legs and resting her chin on her knees. “Thank you for talking with me. I don’t have many friends.”

“Any time, Per,” I said. I hoped she could hear the honesty in my voice. “I don’t exactly have many friends either.”

“There’s always this summer,” she said hopefully. She raised her bottle up to me. “To this summer.”

“To this summer,” I echoed.

We sat outside until the sky began to darken and she excused herself to go home. Briefly, I wondered what Carmilla was doing. What was she like outside of our brief encounters? If I was honest with myself, I was itching to know.

I watched until the stars came out, most hiding from the lights of the neighborhood, but I could still see some of them peeking from their places in the universe. Dad said after my mom died that all people return to the universe after they die, that maybe Mom is part of a star somewhere or a comet that will pass by earth and wave to us years from now.

It was a nice dream.

“Laura, are you out there?” my dad called from the backdoor. I hadn’t even heard that old rusty truck of his rumble up to our house.

“Yeah, Dad,” I called back, gathering the blanket and plate to bring back inside. I took another look at the stars. “I’m coming in.”

He brought home sushi, a rare treat for us, and we engaged in small talk about our days until he ran his hands tiredly over his face. I knew he was exhausted so I suggested he go to bed. He gave me a hug and told me good night, and after I heard his door shut, I rinsed off our dishes and headed to my room.

That night was the first night I didn’t dream of my parents or of work.

I dreamed of Carmilla reading her book in the fading sunshine in her leather pants, boots propped up carelessly on one of the tables outside of Happy Scoops.


End file.
